


Like the ghost, you don't believe in

by smaragdbird



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Ghosts, M/M, Or hallucinations, background Tozer/Armitage, discussions of murder and cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27182770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: When he returns to his tent after killing Billy, Billy is sitting on the fursBilly cannot be there
Relationships: William Gibson/Cornelius Hickey
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Like the ghost, you don't believe in

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skazka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/gifts).



When he returns to (their/his/the) tent, Billy is sitting on the furs. It gives him a pause because this should not be possible. He knows how to kill, held Billy in his arms when his life left him, has just cleaned his knife from Billy’s blood.

Billy absolutely cannot be here.

“You look surprised”, Billy says, and he looks, he looks good. His eyes are bright, blue like the sky, his hair full and curly and there’s a lively flush to his skin. He cannot remember the last time Billy looked like this when he was still alive.

“You’re dead.” He’s not sure how to react to this so he stays where he is, keeping his distance.

“You made sure of that.” Curiously there’s no resentment in Billy’s voice. He’s always imagined that people would resent getting killed. He certainly would.

A justification sits on his tongue, but he swallows it. “You’re not real.”

“You can believe in a spirit bear but not in an actual spirit?” Billy has this expression on his face like he’s laughing at him. He used to love and hate that expression.

“You’re not real”, he tells Billy again.

“Then what am I? A manifestation of your guilty consciousness? Are you trying to make me laugh?”

“Maybe I’m sick.” There’s no conviction behind his words.

Billy snorts and shakes his head. He gets to his feet and walks past him, and while they don’t touch they’re so close that he swears he can smell Billy.

When he looks outside, Billy is gone.

/

He tries to ignore it, tries to move on. 

But whether he likes it or not, Billy’s gotten under his skin long before he came back as a ghost.

If he is a ghost.

It’s maddening that he cannot trust his senses, but he also cannot trust any of the men to ask if they see Billy, too.

“If you’re a ghost, why can’t the others see you?” He asks Billy who’s stretched out on the blankets next to him. Looking as comfortable as ever. 

“They could if I let them”, Billy replies.

He hasn’t tried to touch Billy yet. He’s not sure if it would be worse if he could touch him or if he couldn’t.

“What do you mean?”

“I get to decide who sees me”, Billy replies. His head is resting on his crossed arms and he looks offensively alive for someone dead. “I’ll get a good scare out of De Voeux one of these days.”

“But you decided to haunt me.”

Billy tilts his head to look at him. “You killed me. Seems only fair that you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

/

“How did I taste?”

He startles when Billy asks as he enters his tent. Part of him hoped that Billy would vanish as soon as his body was gone.

“Meat is meat”, he shrugs. “Are you angry?”

Billy shakes his head. “I would’ve done the same. Would’ve done it myself, though.”

“Putting those eight days you were rated as a cook to good use?” It used to be something to joke about because Billy cannot cook for shit. That’s the reason he strongarmed Mr Diggle into his, Billy used to say.

The memory feels like a fist to the throat.

“Why didn’t you?” Billy looks at him with inquisitive blue eyes. “You’re even better with a knife than Goodsir.”

Billy has had these moments before, where he looked at him and saw through him with absolute clarity. He hates it because it makes him feel exposed.

Billy smiles as if he already knows why he couldn’t do it, why he couldn’t go near Billy’s corpse. 

“By the way, I hope you weren’t too attached to your thing with Tozer because he and Armitage are making out on the other side of this hill as if the world is going to end.”

“What thing?”

“Please, you were all over him when we broke up. Tall men you can order around, you have a type.”

“There was no thing. He turned me down.”

Billy chuckles. “He has better taste than I thought.”

“What does that say about you?”

“Since you killed me and ate my corpse, I think we can guess.” Even in death, Billy hasn’t lost his sharp tongue. He used to like that about him.

/

Billy appears as soon as Tozer has left. There’s a spark in his eyes. “This changes things.”

“How do they change for you?” He asks. What is Billy’s plan, now that he’s dead?

“Well, I thought I was going to watch you die a long, drawn out, painful death as revenge for my murder”, Billy admits, “but this is so much bigger. You’re going to try and bind it to you, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps”, he says, despite Billy being right.

Billy knows it too because he rolls his eyes. “You can’t keep secrets from the dead, Edmund.”

He gives him a sharp look. Billy cannot know that name, no one can, he hasn’t used it in years, not since he came to London. “I cannot go back”, he admits.

Not to a life of drudgery, not when he has finally tasted power, true power. This place may be desolate but with the Tuunbaq under his control…who knows?

“If it eats souls, it can do other things”, Billy says, his voice low. “Things from the stories.”

“Like what?”

“Resurrection.”

So that’s Billy’s angle. “Are you bored of death already?”

“Being alive has certain advantages.” Billy stretches out his hand. He flinches when it comes close to his face – and passes right through. “Besides, my body kept you alive. You owe me.”

He doesn’t see it that way, but he must admit that having Billy alive is preferable to having him dead. He doesn’t regret the choices he’s made but if he has the chance to bring him back…

“You’ll need to make your move soon”, Billy continues. “Armitage will talk Tozer into abandoning you to return to the ships sooner rather than later.”

“I know.” He’s aware of Tozer’s divided loyalties, of De Voeux’s cowardice, of Goodsir’s and Diggle’s renitence. He knows which men will abandon him as soon as it looks like he’s not their best bet for survival anymore.

So he has to make himself into that. He looks at Billy and itches to touch him.

Soon.

/

He offers his tongue to the Tuunbaq and then everything goes wrong as the monster chomps on his arm. And behind him, Billy laughs and laughs and laughs.


End file.
